Exploring AI Literacy as a Mediator between Writing Motivation and AI-Assisted Creative Writing in Literature Teacher Education

This study investigated the relationships among writing motivation, artificial intelligence literacy, and attitudes toward AI-assisted creative writing processes among pre-service literature teachers, with a particular focus on the mediating role of AI literacy. A total of 249 pre-service teachers participated in the study, which employed a correlational and mediational research design. Data were collected through the Writing Motivation Scale, an AI Literacy Scale adapted into Turkish, and a researcher-developed AI-Assisted Creative Writing Scale. Descriptive statistics revealed that participants demonstrated moderate-to-high levels across all three variables. Pearson correlation analyses indicated statistically significant positive relationships among the variables, with AI literacy exhibiting a notably stronger association with AI-assisted creative writing (r = .49) than writing motivation (r = .21). Mediation analysis conducted via bootstrapping (5,000 resamples) demonstrated that AI literacy fully mediated the relationship between writing motivation and AI-assisted creative writing (B = 0.132, 95% CI [0.052, 0.220]), with the direct effect becoming non-significant upon inclusion of the mediator. These findings suggest that writing motivation influences engagement with AI-assisted creative writing processes primarily through the pathway of AI literacy, underscoring the necessity of integrating AI literacy instruction into pre-service teacher education programs alongside writing pedagogy.